


Bodega Blood

by Chancy_Lurking



Series: Felix+ [8]
Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Fist Fights, Gen, Homophobia, Minor Violence, Protectiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 04:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11684286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chancy_Lurking/pseuds/Chancy_Lurking
Summary: “Felix doesn’t even realize he’s going to punch him until the guy’s teeth are breaking under his fist.”(Felix learns about Lito's situation from an outside source.)





	Bodega Blood

Felix had learned that Lito was an actor the day he met him, but he learns that he _actually makes_ _a good living_ doing that in an unfortunate way.

The bodega on the corner of Guad and Rio is run by an old woman Felix half wishes would take his flirting seriously while being simultaneously entertained by the fact that she doesn’t. He leans on the counter to grin at Soledad every time he goes for groceries and she laughs at him, alternating between calling him – what Wolfgang has told him are – childlike endearments and insults so vulgar Felix is _overjoyed_ to repeat them. She also makes _amazing_ horchata according to Lito, so he isn’t above letting her pick at them for loitering while they hang around the counter with the other loafers, drinking it and talking back to her.

It’s on one such day that things go a little sideways.

Because Felix is sitting on the ice machine with another guy arguing good-naturedly about soccer. And it _is_ good-naturedly; Felix doesn’t know they guy, he’s never even seen him before, but Soledad treats him almost the same way she treats Felix which is enough to make them kindred.

Wolfgang is lazily propped up closer to the  oscillating fan on the counter, half playing two-hand solitaire with Soledad, half watching the door with the paranoia of someone who’s learned what happens when you don’t. Felix keeps him in his line of sight same as always, occasionally meeting his eyes, but mostly Felix is trying to keep up with a conversation only half in English.

His attention shatters when he sees Wolfgang freeze out of the corner of his eye, though.

The tension in his body was nearly indistinguishable from the way he normally carries himself, but Felix has already figured out that he can notice things about Wolfgang that the average person would miss. When he looks over and sees the startled look on Wolfgang’s face, he has to physically restrain himself from pulling his knife. His eyes shift around looking for the danger, but nothing has changed, nobody’s come in. He doesn’t understand what’s wrong until he registers the shitty little TV on the back counter and how Soledad has turned her attention to it.

It’s on a Spanish station, so he’d tuned it out a while ago, but now he’s loathed to be missing out when the guy beside him jumps off the ice machine to lean over the counter and look. “ _Chinga la madre,_ are they talking about that shit again?”

Wolfgang’s eyes go quietly dangerous as he follows the man’s movements.

Felix stands up and slides between the two of them, leaning casually against the counter. “About what now?”

When he looks at the gritty image on the screen, it doesn’t mean anything to him at first. He doesn’t recognize the actor on screen, dressed in all black, covered in blood, nor does he when they change to a picture of him naked and connected at the hip to a different man. However, when it changes to an image of him smiling brightly, it rings familiar in a way that is vaguely alarming right up until “ _Lito Rodriguez_ ” scrolls across the bottom of the screen and Felix goes cold.

There’s a completely stunned lack of subtlety when Felix turns to look at Wolfgang with wide eyes only to find _Lito, Lito, Lito_ staring up at him with fear and shame all over Wolfgang’s face.

“Lito Rodriguez _,_ ” Soledad explains, her face laced with genuine sadness. “Somebody leaked pictures of him and his lover and now the press is out to crucify him, the good-for-nothing vultures. He lost everything, _pobrecito._ ”

 “ _Pobrecito,_ ” the other man repeats the word, but this time mockingly, _disgustedly_ like he wants to spit. “Less than he deserves. You’re so soft, _Sole_ , _sí yo había…_ ” he switches into Spanish then, so Felix doesn’t know exactly what he says next.

But he understands the vulgarity of it from the way Soledad’s face pinches with aggravation when she tells him to shut up. He understands the hateful violence in it from the way Lito shuts his eyes and clenches his jaw as if he’s heard it a million times before, and if he weren’t in Wolfgang’s body he might cry.

“Too many of ‘em these days, ah?” the man switches back to English, nudging Felix with a chummy smirk and the sort of bold obliviousness only exhibited by guys not used to getting socked in the jaw.

Felix doesn’t even realize he’s _going_ to punch him until the guy’s teeth are breaking under his fist.

“ _Felix!_ ”

He can’t quite dodge it when the guy tackles him, throwing an elbow into Felix’s face, but he manages to twist around before he can crack his head on the linoleum. He lands hard on his side and a post-card rack lands on top of them, but he barely feels it, sight gone red. It isn’t until Wolfgang – and it is Wolfgang this time, he’s cursing in German – is prying him backwards that he registers Soledad has a sawed-off in her hands.

The man on the floor, wisely, does not move. Neither does Felix.

“You’re going out that door and in opposite directions or I’m calling the cops, understand?” she snaps. “ _Understand!?_ ”

They understand.

“Then get!”

They get.

Wolfgang is dragging him down the street to the right, their brief-but-no-longer friend staggering in the other direction, sparing them a filthy look over his shoulder. This time, he _does_ spit, and a word follows it that makes Felix tense against Wolfgang’s grasp. He doesn’t get anywhere.

What he does get is shoved down an alley.

“Ow!” Felix exclaims nasally when his back collides with the brick wall behind a dumpster. He’s already got blood pouring out of his nose and his shoulder is throbbing, he could do without more man-handling. “What the fuck!”

“What part of ‘ _we should stay out of trouble_ ’ was unclear?” Wolfgang snaps directly in Felix’s face.

Felix glares at him, aghast. “Am I talking to Wolfie or the _fuzz_?” 

Wolfgang’s face tweaks. “ _Well, he has a point_.”

“Oh, the fuzz. Good to see you sober,” he says, completely honestly, but still with a sneer.

“Thanks,” Will sneers right back. “You’re lucky she didn’t call the police on you, asshole.”

“So Wolfgang did instead?” Felix bites back, “Having a cop in his head turned him into a fuckin’ snitch, good job.”

Will glowers at him, but then turns to look to his side. “Lito, he’s fine.”

Felix straightens suddenly, remembering how he got here in the first place. “Of course I’m fine, are _you_?”

“ _No!_ ” Lito says and then turns away from, “No, I’m not, this sucks, it _fucking sucks_ and I’m freaking the fuck out. I fucking _hate_ this, I hate that I was outed like this, I wasn’t ready. Soledad was right, ok, they took everything, I lost—” he sucks in a breath, raising both his hands and shutting his eyes like he’s irritated and trying to calm himself down before he gets into hysterics.

“Lito…” Felix says, willing to wait through whichever part of Lito wins.

“No. No, I still have my family,” Lito corrects, opening his eyes. “They didn’t abandon me. I still have my lover and our…” he almost laughs, “Girlfriend? Life-partner? Dani is still here with us. And my mom _still loves_ me, she’s proud of me.” Then he does laugh a little hysterically, motioning around himself. “The voices in my head love me, they _know me_ and love me. And have _ridiculous_ friends who care enough to pick fights for me,” he adds as he comes back to stand before Felix. His face flickers with worry, “But please don’t pick fights for me.”

Felix scoffs, but when it doesn’t make the usual sound, he turns away, popping his nose back in place and unceremoniously snorting blood onto the ground. “I like picking fights,” he says, “might as well be for something worth it.”

“This fight is a lot older than you,” Nomi’s smoky voice cuts in tiredly and Felix tenses. “There’s a lot you _can_ do, but if you want to punch every single homophobe you meet, you’re gonna need more hands.”

Felix raises his hands, unbothered by the state of his knuckles. “Two more for the cause. I’m not really a talking sorta guy.” He nods down the block, “That _fucker’s_ gonna think about his missing teeth every time he tries to mouth off from now on.” That counts for something in Felix’s book.

Nomi stares at him for a long breath, then sighs, shaking her head. “ _Fine_ ,” she says in the melodic way only dangerous women can, “but if you get caught, we’re coming for you.”

Felix is annoyed by how much that alarms him. “You can’t risk—”

“ _If you get caught, we’re coming for you_ ,” Nomi says again and it’s the kindest threat he’s ever received. It twists in his chest as much as it pisses him off, but then Nomi kisses his forehead and he feels like a cowed little brother. He looks away.

“Felix,” it’s Lito’s pronunciation now and Felix looks back at him, to find him smiling sadly. “I must admit that was very satisfying to watch, though.”

Felix perks up a little. “Yeah?”

“Wolfgang beat up the guy who did this, you know?” Lito continues, and no, Felix had actually not known that, but is completely unsurprised and more than a little pleased. “Between that and this, I am quite satisfied. So let’s…” he takes Felix’s hands, closes them between his own. “Let’s take it easy, ok?”

Felix doesn’t really _do_ ‘take it easy’, but Lito doesn’t have to know that. Or, maybe he already does, because – well, _headmate_ – he rolls his eyes and Felix smiles at him. “What’d Wolfie say?”

“That you are a hard-headed lunatic and we are wasting his breath,” Lito answers, scrubbing at the blood on Felix’s face with his sleeve when the man cackles. “Birds of a feather, ah?”

“You know it,” Felix smirks, but then sobers, slapping Wolfgang’s chest. “I won’t get caught,” he offers as a middle ground, then adds, “Won’t get dead, either, ok?”

Lito shakes his head at him, but he’s also smiling.

“You’d better fucking not.”

Felix isn’t sure who said that.

 

//

 

(Felix gives the bodega a wide breadth for about a week before he peaks inside bearing a sheepish smile and a shitty bouquet of flowers. And it’s shitty intentionally, because it looks like the _exact_ sort of thing a guy like him would bring an angry lover, which he’s hoping Soledad will find funny. She does not laugh when he comes in, her face hard and annoyed, but Felix has _slept with_ women who’ve given him that face, so he doesn’t back out just yet. She calls him a string of vulgarities when she finally takes the flowers, but it sounds _a little bit_ fond and Felix grins at her. When he offers to buy all of the bootlegs of Lito’s movies she has on hand, she graces him with a friendly smack on the cheek and he feels like he can enter without threat of bodily harm. When she scowls at him and says, “You owe me a lost customer, cabrón. You better bring _your man_ with you next time, I like him better than you, anyway,” he reads through what she’s trying to say and feels bright in his heart. He doesn’t bother correcting her, already promising to drag Wolfgang in for frescas after work tomorrow.)

**Author's Note:**

> Yo, um, mostly-unnecessary disclaimer? Don’t try and set your own broken noses. 
> 
> Also, WE’RE GETTING A MOVIE [multiple overlapping air horns]


End file.
